[jimbokun]

That's a strange definition of capitalism you're using.

Most people use capitalism to describe a system where people trade goods and services with as little interference from government as possible.

In this case, the government has written laws in a way that indirectly transfers wealth from consumers to large corporations.

Saying that such laws are "inevitable" in any conceivable capitalist system is unfalsifiable and adds little to the discussion.

I think calling it "crony capitalism" to make it clear that it's the undue influence of capital on government specifically causing the problem here lends more clarity to the discussion.

[abvdasker]

> Most people use capitalism to describe a system where people trade goods and services with as little interference from government as possible.

This is not a real definition. Saying "most people" use the term to mean what you want it to mean in this argument is ridiculous.

Capitalism is a system of private ownership of capital. We live under that system. Anything you see that happens now is the result of that system because it's the one that exists.

There is no such thing as "crony capitalism". What came before crony capitalism? Was it regular capitalism? Did regular capitalism turn into crony capitalism? Or — more likely — is it all one continuous process and system of accumulation?

[dragonwriter]

> Most people use capitalism to describe a system where people trade goods and services with as little interference from government as possible.

“Capitalism” is a term coined for the dominant system of the industrialized West in the mid-19th Century and is defined by the specific orientation of property rights in that system around the private and marketable ownership of the non-financial means of production (the “capital” in “capitalism”), and the way in which the system was fundamentally structured around—and institutions within it, including government, invariably served the interests of—the owners of that capital, who formed its ruling class, displacing the landed hereditary aristocracy of the preceding systems.

While the dominant politico-economic systems of the developed world have evolved somewhat since then, with modern mixed economies having structures in place mitigate some of the adverse impacts the original system for which thr label “capitalism” was created for has on the vast majority of the population that is not major capital owners, it retains the basic property structure and resulting class heirarchy of the original “capitalism”, and neither it nor the original tended tof eatite annabsence of regulation of commerce.

> I think calling it "crony capitalism" to make it clear that it's the undue influence of capital on government specifically causing the problem here lends more clarity to the discussion.

The commanding and undue influence of capital on all of society, government and otherwise, is literally the feature for which critics of the then-dominant system coined the term “capitalism” to refer to that system. It doesn’t need an extra qualifier for that.